competing with Scratch and Alice
by Joe Strout · in General Discussion · 05/07/2009 (4:42 pm) · 1 replies
I'm currently evaluating a lot of different possible programming environments to hook my son on programming. In the educational programming arena, there are two big contenders: Scratch and Alice.
If you're not familiar with them, you should check them out (http://scratch.mit.edu and http://alice.org). Both are very friendly and easy to use. In particular, they require little or no typing and have no possibility of scripting errors, because you build your code by snapping lines of code together like puzzle pieces, and plugging in expressions and such wherever those can fit. It's hard to explain, so try it for a couple hours and see what I mean.
No, that's not a good approach for making real games, but it's a wonderful approach for kids -- my son is a 2nd grader and can barely type yet, but he can create original games in Scratch. (Haven't tried him on Alice yet, but probably will this summer.)
The only problem is: they're both pretty underpowered, and don't lead easily to greater things.
Now imagine something like Scratch based on TGB, or something like Alice based on one of the TGE variants. The lines of code you'd be snapping together would be TorqueScript code. In fact, I don't see why the project you built that way couldn't be later "unlocked" with (or exported to) the real TGB or TGE environment, at which point you just continue editing it with a text editor. But for beginners, it'd be fabulous -- no syntax errors, little typing, just pure experimental learning.
If you're not familiar with them, you should check them out (http://scratch.mit.edu and http://alice.org). Both are very friendly and easy to use. In particular, they require little or no typing and have no possibility of scripting errors, because you build your code by snapping lines of code together like puzzle pieces, and plugging in expressions and such wherever those can fit. It's hard to explain, so try it for a couple hours and see what I mean.
No, that's not a good approach for making real games, but it's a wonderful approach for kids -- my son is a 2nd grader and can barely type yet, but he can create original games in Scratch. (Haven't tried him on Alice yet, but probably will this summer.)
The only problem is: they're both pretty underpowered, and don't lead easily to greater things.
Now imagine something like Scratch based on TGB, or something like Alice based on one of the TGE variants. The lines of code you'd be snapping together would be TorqueScript code. In fact, I don't see why the project you built that way couldn't be later "unlocked" with (or exported to) the real TGB or TGE environment, at which point you just continue editing it with a text editor. But for beginners, it'd be fabulous -- no syntax errors, little typing, just pure experimental learning.
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